


Loud and Clear

by Catchclaw



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Established Relationship, Idiots in Love, Lack of Communication, M/M, Mutual Pining, Reunion Sex, Reunions, Separation Anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:47:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23538604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: Sonny figures Barba doesn't need to know he'll be going undercover. Sonny is wrong.
Relationships: Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 158
Collections: April 2020 Barisi Bingo





	Loud and Clear

**Author's Note:**

> Bingo square: Reunion.

“What I don’t understand,” Barba says, very fucking loudly, “is why you couldn’t tell me first.”

“Because it happened too fast. The word came, the Lieu asked, and I had to--”

“ _Bullshit_.” A death glare over an empty glass, knuckles around it turned white. “Don’t patronize me, Carisi.”

“I’m not,” Sonny says, because he is, sort of, but only for the best of reasons. Like not getting shivved by his semi-secret boyfriend in the middle of a bar he’d like to come back to sometime, thanks. “It’s not the best reason, I’ll grant you that, but it’s the truth, Raf. Not my fault you don’t like the answer.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No.” He jabs his finger at Barba’s Brooks Brothers’ chest. “You asked.”

It was Sonny’s idea to do this here, to stage this uneasy reunion in public. Uneasy because he wanted to shove his hands in Barba’s hair and kiss him ragged and senseless, while Barba’s cup of tea? Was to be mad. Not just pissed off like he was when he drew the wrong judge, or angry like he got when the Laproaig ran dry and he had to drink Dewars, but filled with a kind of righteous fury that made Sonny fear for the safety of the glassware and maybe a little bit for his own hide. He’d only been gone for three weeks, gone in the sense of undercover and sans badge and gun and it hadn’t been that bad, really; they’d nabbed their guy cold, which was awesome! and Sonny had still been riding that high when he’d picked up his cell at the precinct and dialed the number by heart. He’d figured Barba would be annoyed he’d disappeared, but glad to have him back.

And yeah, he’d been dead wrong about that.

“Detective Carisi?” Barba had said through clenched teeth. Sonny could hear them grinding over the phone. “Detective Sonny Carisi? Huh. You’re not dead, I suppose. Is that what you’re telling me?”

Sonny had laughed. Yeah, that’d been a mistake. “Not dead,” he said. “I’ve been upstate for a while on an undercover thing. Didn’t Liv tell you?

“Yes,” Barba had said, the word pure ice. “Liv did.”

The call had only last two minutes, tops, but by the end, Sonny was sweating.

“See you at seven," he'd said. "You sure you want to do the bar?”

A snort. “I am. Don’t bother getting a table.”

Then the line cut and Sonny had knocked his head against the soda machine and accepted it: yeah, he was fucked.

Now, the bartender--a pretty redhead who knows trouble when she sees it--sets down a fresh glass for Barba and zips away without a word. Shit, Sonny thinks. Oh shit.

Barba takes a short, furious sip and glares. “I realize that discretion has been the watchword of our _contretemps_ , but there’s a different between discretion and being a dick.”

Sonny opens his mouth, shuts it again. It seems smarter.

“You’re the dick in this scenario,” Barba says. “I want to make that abundantly clear.”

“Yeah, I--”

Barba pitches forward on the stool and he’s in Sonny’s space suddenly, bright and sharp, his mouth a knife. “You scared me, you asshole! I didn’t know where you were. A week, I don’t hear from you. What was I supposed to think?”

“We don’t talk every week, Raf. You’re busy.”

“I’m busy?! Fuck that. You know where I am. It’s not like I’m running around all over goddamn Manhattan in the dead of night like some people.”

Sonny snorts. “No, but you’re in court all the time. Or writing. Or doing prep. I’ve called you lots of times and you’ve just grunted at me and hung up.”

“That is a goddamned lie.” A beat. “Once. I did that once.”

Fuck, he needs another beer or six. “Nah, way more than that. During MacMillan last fall. During the Carter case in April, like twice. And then last month, you--”

Raf reels back to grab his drink. “Uh huh. So you’ll call me for no fucking reason when you know that I’m slammed but you can’t be bothered to let me know that you’re going to disappear for a month? That doesn’t really give you the moral high ground, Carisi. More like, to my previous point, it makes you a dick.”

“I don’t understand why you’re so mad.” He doesn’t know it’s true until he says it, hears it over the shit 90s music drifting down from the bar's speakers. “Raf, honest to God, I never thought you’d give a shit. I mean, a little bit of one, maybe, but not like this.”

Barba stares at him like he’s speaking in tongues. And keeps doing that, staring, silent, way too long to be normal. Normal for Raf, that is. 

Sonny can count on one hand the conversations where Barba’s let any kind of silence hang in the balance between them; he likes the sound of his own voice, that’s what Sonny’s figured, which is cool because Sonny loves it, too: when they’re arguing, when Raf is shouting at some judge, when they’re stretched out in the stupidly comfy sheets that fills Barba’s bed. He likes it when the real world falls away and it’s just them, when Raf holds him down and snarls in his ear about how good Sonny is and how much he wants to fuck him or when they’re entwined like wisteria vines, too exhausted to do more than kiss, and Raf whispers soft songs to him in Spanish that he doesn’t understand but that he does, oh hell, he does, and in the mornings, before they go their separate ways, Barba eats toast and opines about whatever’s on the front page of the _Times_ and lets Sonny hold him from behind so long as he doesn’t wrinkle Barba’s shirt until it’s time to go back to the world and in that moment, those, Raf doesn’t say anything. He just tips his face up and closes his eyes and still, Sonny can hear him. Yeah, he can. Loud and clear.

That’s what this silence feels like, weirdly--like the quiet of a kiss that isn’t actually happening. And they’re not in Raf’s kitchen, they’re in the one bar Sonny likes that’s spitting distance from the courthouse and that isn’t a thing they do in public, you know, kiss. By mutual agreement. It seemed like not the greatest idea.

But now, after almost a month of not being himself, sitting a hand’s width away from a beautiful man with an angry mouth and wounded eyes, Sonny gets it--boom! Just like that. This is the one thing in his life he really does not want to hide.

He ducks his eyes and futzes with his beer bottle. “I didn’t realize you’d miss me; that’s the truth, Raf. But, uh, worse was, I guess--ah, God.” It’s like being a kid again talking to his first crush. “I didn’t want to face how much I’d miss you. I shoulda told you I was leaving, though. I’m sorry.”

Barba makes a strangled noise; Sonny can see his fingers drumming on the bar. “You’re sorry.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am. I should’ve called you.”

That noise again, louder. “You’re _sorry_?”

Sonny’s head snaps up without his express written permission. “Yes, Raf, jeez, I said--!”

But the look on Barba’s face cuts him off, cut him off hard like a clean tackle, and it’s all he can do just to swallow. Because this look--this look, he’s never seen outside of a very particular space, one that’s private and has a door with a lock and curtains and big, comfy bed.

“There is one thing I want,” Barba says, each consonant crisp. His trial voice. His _don’t fuck with me, your honor_ voice. “One thing and one thing only at this moment, Sonny Carisi. Do you know what that is?”

“Um,” Sonny says, though God he hopes his brain is in the ballpark. “No?”

Barba slips his wallet from inside his coat and puts a fifty on the counter; Sonny’s not sure he even looks at the bill. “I want to help you understand why I was so fucking mad, _mi cielito_ , and make sure that you are exquisitely clear on why it would upset me, now and in the future, were you once again to disappear without a goddamn word.”

“Oh.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Barba mimics, his mouth curling up at the ends. “But first, you self-sacrificing asshole--come here.”

Then there are two steady hands curled into his vest and yanking him from the bar stool and before he’s steady on his feet, Raf is kissing him fierce and deep and loving and he’s humming and he’s holding and he’s kissing the shit out of Raf right back and the funny thing is that the real world disappears, poof, just like that: all that matters in this wrinkle in time, ok, is this man.

“Are we good now?” he says against Barba’s mouth. “You promise not to murder me on the way home?”

Barba bites at his lip. He’s hot in Sonny’s arms, smirking and lithe. Holy shit, Sonny’s missed him. “Eh, I can’t make any promises.”

“Ok,” Sonny says, because he’s a reasonable guy even when he’s holding onto--hello--the maybe-yes love of his life. “But please try."

Later, when Barba’s bent across his back and groaning sweet against his neck, Sonny says it again, that word, _please_ , and it feels like a fucking dictionary and he doesn’t have to say anymore, he can’t, he doesn’t want to. It’s all there. It’s all there.

“Right there,” Raf pants, his nails digging into Sonny’s hips, his skin a sear. “Right there, is that it, darling? It is, isn’t it? I know, I know, baby. That’s it. Come for me.”

And when he does, the sound Raf makes the bed shake and yeah, in that sound, it’s all there:

 _Don’t disappear again, asshole_  
 _You owed me a call  
_ _I was angry, you fool, ‘cause I care_

“How could you not know,” Raf whispers later, his face tucked in Sonny’s neck. “How could you not know that I care about you? How in the everloving fuck could you not know that?”

It’s easy to say the truth when you’re fucked out. “You never said.”

Barba makes a pained little sound. “I didn’t know I had to.”

Sonny kisses him then. Cups his hand around Barba’s face and licks lazy into his mouth until the taste of that pain has gone away, until Raf is curled tight in his arms. “Hmmm,” Sonny says. “Guess we both gotta work on speaking up, huh?”

“Yeah,” Raf says. His lips twitch and find Sonny’s and hallelujah, all is right in the world. “I guess we do.”


End file.
